Shade essance quest difficulties

[yahoo]

I've got the quest from the chick in the castle, the one where you need to chop off a bit from the blosk/dharmon shade. So - how the heck do I complete it? I've tried smacking the shade and all I get is "you chop off a bit of the shade and it takes on another form" or somesuch and then it spawns a skeleton. Help very much appreciated.

[Delicious Vlish]

Hack away for a while and you will get a message saying you chopped off a bit. Then head back to the castle.

[Randomizer]

Also it's easier to do it in Blosk rather than Dharmon. Make sure you're hasted so you can just flee east or west through a deserted area to get away after you get the sample. There will be a message when the Shade returns to the wasted area. There is no sense risking the loss of an NPC that might provide a quest/reward later in the game.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Randomizer:
Also it's easier to do it in Blosk rather than Dharmon.

Just to make it perfectly clear, the reason for this is that if you approach the shade in Dharmon, the whole town becomes hostile and stays hostile even after you kill the shade. Do NOT attack the shade in Dharmon!

[gren]

This is the way I did it:

I went in and out of blosk until I got the message that the shade was there. Then I inched my way up towards where the shade lives. As soon as I was almost in sight (but not yet), I hostiled. I then had my melee fighter get buffed, and head up towards the shade, while the rest of the party sat a safe distance away and waited each turn. My fighter was strong enough that he could survive long enough against the shade to knock off a piece. I then let my fighter got until he died, and had the rest of the pary declare peace after that. Since they were far enough away from the shade it worked perfectly.

 

Sort of cheap, but it works.

[Alorael at Large]

It's definitely easier with a single buffed fighter, but there's no reason to make it a suicide mission. A hasted fighter can escape the shade's clutches. Not that it really matters since you'll be leaving through the city gates almost immediately anyway, but it's a point of pride not to get killed.

 

—Alorael, who also tried summoning cannon fodder to distract the shade. It didn't work very well.

[Retrospecter]

Me, I ususally have less than four characters anyway, so I make a new throw-away character and have him stand quite a distance away. When the rest of my party have done what they need to do and have died, I heal up and delete the newly made guy. Though that's even more cheap than the previously mentioned tactic.

[Randomizer]

I can't remember if slow works on that shade, but a hasted party can outrun it. Just have one priest type around to heal and destroy the creatures that form when you hit the shade. It's not that hard to attack and retreat if you're buffed to start. I got out with almost no injuries. You can use ranged attacks without any problems.